Meghan Markle should be applauded for her honesty about miscarriage | Cheryl Gibbs

I was incredibly sad to hear the news that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle suffered a miscarriage earlier this year.
The Duchess of Sussex arrives at the University of Chichester, Bognor Regis, West Sussex, as part of her first joint official visit to Sussex. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Wednesday October 3, 2018. Photo credit should read: Dominic Lipinski/PA WireThe Duchess of Sussex arrives at the University of Chichester, Bognor Regis, West Sussex, as part of her first joint official visit to Sussex. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Wednesday October 3, 2018. Photo credit should read: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire
The Duchess of Sussex arrives at the University of Chichester, Bognor Regis, West Sussex, as part of her first joint official visit to Sussex. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Wednesday October 3, 2018. Photo credit should read: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire

The Duchess of Sussex shared the news in The New York Times describing that she felt a ‘sharp cramp’ while holding her son, Archie, and that she felt an ‘almost unbearable grief’ when she realised she had suffered a miscarriage.

The article was called ‘The Losses We Share’ and it was an honest and open account of her experience. The royal family have been criticised for not making a public statement on the matter and supporting the couple, something critics have said could help mend the rift between the family.

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Regardless of whether they should have done or not, the fact is this couple went through one of the worst losses possible and the fact they shared the news with the world, to help others, can only be applauded.

I took Harley being a great little sleeper for granted

Getting a baby to sleep seems like it should be the easiest thing in the world – they’re tired, right? So they’ll sleep? Wrong.

Our daughter Harley who is ten months on Sunday was a dream sleeper from the moment she was born.

I remember frantic calls to the health visitors and midwives in the early days because she wouldn’t wake for hours and supposedly you’re meant to feed a new born every two to three hours.

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Well sometimes, Harley would go six hours without feeding and for love nor money, I could not get her to wake up.

From about eight weeks she was sleeping through the night until about 4.30am and I was immensely satisfied that I had a ‘good sleeper’.

I would often hear tired mums on our NCT Whatsapp group talk about their awful nights detailing how often their baby got up during the night.

I would feel awful for them but so relieved we weren’t in the same position.

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I mean, don’t get me wrong, Harley woke up during the night, sometimes frequently, but it never seemed as bad as others.

But boy, are we paying the price for that now.

She’s still not a bad sleeper and will wake around 6am most days, but she’s become an incredibly fussy one.

The creak of a floor board can wake her now, even though we’ve never tiptoed around her.

She’ll wake, sometimes three times a night and they’ll be nothing she wants other than to sleep on one of us until she’s fallen back into a deep sleep.

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God help us if we try to get her to self-settle – it just won’t happen.

By god is she strong – physically and mentally.

Now she can crawl, stand and pull herself up, Matt and I stand no chance of getting her down and keeping her in her cot.

She is extremely headstrong and she likes to get her own way – I have no idea where she gets it from…

Although I was chatting to my dad the other day and he made a comment.

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I have no idea what he meant when he said: ‘Payback hurts Cheryl, payback hurts.’

I can’t help but worry about the vaccine in the long-term

The UK is the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer jab and I cannot believe that the government has already started rolling it out to hospitals across the country.

It arrived in the UK yesterday from Belgium with 10m doses coming before the year’s out and another 30m due next year. This is potentially fantastic news.

But what I worry the most about is the long-term impact the jab might have, that no one will know because there hasn’t been any long term studies yet carried out. I can’t help but worry about that.

Naturally vaccines will go to the most vulnerable first and rightly so and then they will be distributed by GPs, but will you be queuing for yours?